Monday, December 22, 2008

Snowmageddon, Day 3

Finally, a break in the weather! After a whopping two straight days of snow we finally saw some blue skies today. And the sun pushed the temp up in to the upper 30s, making for a bit of melting to boot! Not total melt, but enough that when I shoveled the stairs and some of the walkway through the yard the little remaining snow melted away.

The big bonus of the day was that Maya had a friend spend the night, so she had someone to play with other than her brother, who has been obsessed the last few days making a PowerPoint deck. Or, rather, using PowerPoint as his animation program...anyone know where I can get a cheap used copy of a Flash animator?

Anyhow, eventually the sun broke through and I had to head out to take more pictures. Because while snowing snow and cloudy snow are pretty, there's something more prettier about sunny snow.

I started out in the back yard, 'cause I wanted to get a third shot of the island with the flowering plum covered in snow. And the devastation that a full day's play has on the pristine snowfield...

Lots of snow on the tree, lots of trampled snow on the ground

What I noticed first was the huge number of birds. Not on the Hitchcock scale of flocks, but still plenty. Mostly Robins, but there were smaller ones (finches, maybe? Something...), at least one Stellar Jay, and the ubiquitous hummingbirds (we've got about six of them nesting in the trees at the back of the yard). But only this guy was willing to sit still long enough for a decent picture.

A jay in the birch tree. Yeah, it's overexposed, but he was too dim otherwise.

I then moved to the front, where lo and behold we actually had some icicles! The kids had been asking about them last week when it was wicked cold and dry, and I'd told them that with the rain gutters and our relatively good insulation we probably wouldn't see any. But then the freezing rain hit and the snow slid over the gutter, and with today's melt we got these puppies:

And since I posted the photo of this rose all frozen yesterday, I figured I'd take one today after it had thawed out and looked all artistic.

And then I saw these berries, and the contrast of the red, white and blue was nice so I took some shots of them as well:

While I was out taking pictures another of Maya's friends came by to see if she wanted to go sledding. So they bundled up and headed up the street, where they found that three girls on the sled goes a bit faster than when it was just two.

And with that I went back inside, 'cause the wind was picking up, the temperature was dropping, and I wasn't wearing snow pants. Yes, I am that big of a wuss.